CiTyBee has started to collaborate with Marko Sancanin from Platforma 9.81 in Zagreb on a process where a team of sociologists, anthroplogist and landscape designers are working with architects to involve the Dubrava neighbourhood around an old marketplace in the eastern part of the city in creating a new urban space.
The Marketplace is deserted and looks a bit sad, yet it is surrounded by a soup kitchen, a professional boxing club, a local theatre and off course a café. See photos from the Neighbourhood here
The neighbourhood is a classic Zagreb half wild development with mainly selfbuild houses. It fits the porosity of Neaples that Benjamin and Asja Lacis wrote about in 1925:
In such corners, one can scarcely discern where building is still in progress
and where dilapidation has already set in. For nothing is concluded. Porosity
results not only from the indolence of the southern artisan, but also, above
all, from the passion for improvisation, which demands that space and
opportunity be preserved at any price.
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